I'm a listmaker...

This is a picture from yesterday. :D The store at the orchard was set up in two tents, one of which was for "picture opportunities". Or something. Anyway, it had a bunch of hay bales decorated with fall things. Since we were buying too much for one (or even two) people to carry, we had one of us set up back in the back tent with the girl, guarding our ever-growing pile of delicious things. She had a grand time, trying to grab apples and bang them against the gravel floor.

In the end, we got:

• 1 bottle of sparkling goldrush cider
• 2 bottles of sparkling spiced cider (sooo good)
• 1 gallon jug of basic cider
• 1/2 a peck of winesap apples
• 1/2 a peck of fuji apples
• 3 pie pumpkins ($1.50 each!)
• 1 jack-o-lantern
• 1 mini pumpkin
• 4 jars of jam
• 1 jar of pumpkin butter

We really do rely on the good people at the orchard to supply us for a while. We'll eat the jam all year long, and the pie pumpkins will last us through the holidays. The sparkling cider will go on special occasions, but particularly on New Years. The apples will be eating apples for a while (they keep a decently long time) and some of them will be dessert for Halloween. The cider will get mulled and served at Halloween as well.

I like buying much of this stuff from them because it's better and cheaper than in the store...

This is Ari, being a little walker in the restaurant we went to lunch at. She's totally a walker now- she only crawls in last extremity now.

And, here's Ari being a Quaker pirate today. We went to the Quaker meeting, and Ari was the only little girl in the First Day School (which is not always the case at this meeting, mind).

Ari was very cute today- here's some of what she's up to:

• She's into clapping her hands alot.
  
• She likes to play monsters with Thad (and me, to a lesser extent)- she'll roar and make faces with us.
• If we do a face-sucker (put our hand over her face and go "rawr! slurp slurp slurp", she'll take our hand away from her face, and then put it back on. Repeatedly! She wants the face sucker to get her brains!
• Today, she grabbed my wrap, and started wearing it like she was a ghost. Or a nun.
  
• If she wants us to do something particular, she'll grab our hands and put them how she wants. She wants to read? She'll take a book, grab our hand, and shove the book into the hand. She wants to be fed water? She'll grab the sippy, grab my hand, and shove the sippy into my hand.
  

That's all I can think of. It's really sweet.

Highly flammable couches

I'm really tired and not going to post much (or any pictures, yet)... JON STEWART was tonight!!! It was so cool. We got there an hour early, and got some really nice seats, definitely close enough to see everything.

We also went to the orchard, but there was no apple picking. :( The nasty weather lately meant that roads into the orchard were impassable. So, no Goldrush for us. We did get other good stuff, including punkins for the holiday pies. Mmm.

Fabulous

This is Ari's new trick- hand clapping! She will imitate you if you do it. Also, if she hears cheering or shouting or applause, she knows that you're supposed to clap your hands.

We went to the gym today, and Ari spent several hours climbing all over a study area up there. She had great fun showing Brooke what a good walker she is.

She's generally better at imitating things these days. She will wave bye-bye semi-consistently. Still no words or signs, though.

We went to the department Halloween party tonight, and this is how we dressed. It was just me and Ari- Thad was at Shaintar. It was kind of a dark and loud party, but there were bunches of kids there- there a lot of young kids attached to the linguistics department these days.

This wasn't the best costume we've ever done, but it was certainly passable. I find that with going all out for D*Con, I tend to phone Halloween in, costume-wise.


Well, I'm dead tired, and going to bed now.

Argh... it's taken me an hour and a half to upload pictures and write this. My computer is so gimpy slow these days. It's ridiculous.

The special-ed guy

This picture is actually from yesterday night- Ari playing with her buddy Jaime! :) On game nights, she assumes that all these people are here to play with her... or do something with those enticing bits of plastic that no one will let her touch. One or the other.

Today, we mostly stayed home and cleaned up. I had planned for us to go out in the afternoon, but Ari actually napped- which, as it is really sporadic, I never plan for. She even napped for nearly three hours- I got to do some art projects and have a nice long chat with the Darren. I should, of course, have been doing schoolwork (for which I shall pay in sleep tonight) but it was very nice.
Thad came home after subbing, and just crashed out. He's in the middle of his three-shift stretch now, but at least he got a solid four hours' sleep- which is not nothing.

This is Ari in the dining room before I cleaned it... not that it looks all that different now. These days, I strive for "not a health violation" rather than "clean". There's just always going to be a certain amount of clutter. Like, today: I cleaned the bedroom. I pitched old newpapers, folded (and stowed) clean diapers, gathered dirty clothes for laundry (three loads today, baby!) and put some of my clothes away.

I did not, however, attempt to deal with the big pile of books Ari pulled off of her shelf... she can pull books off much faster than I can get them on. *sigh*

And here she is, playing next to the tupperware. She spent an inordinate amount of time doing this today. Funny thing- we've had a glue trap right where she's sitting for weeks. We finally managed to catch two (!) mice on it last night, and today is the day she wants to sit ovr there, now that the trap's gone. It's very convenient.

I finished some stuff for Halloween (although, not everything) and I made a dinner. Now, to finish school stuff and do some dishes.

PS: I had a really hard time picking which shot to put here... I usually take two or three shots of the same picture, babies being how they are. Anyway, and I take the best one- but they were all so cute! You can see the other two (I picked this one at random) here and here.

Snoring like my grandpa

Well, I worked today. I was half an hour late to class, which is always mortifying... Every time that happens (too often) I have to make myself go to class; part of me wants to just skip it rather than have to walk into class late again, and march all the way to the front of the room in front of everybody. I know probably nobody else cares (or halfway notices), but I hate being late. :(

I had delicious meatloaf leftovers in sandwich format for my lunch. I thought that meatloaf dish would make good cold slices on bread, and boy howdy, was I right!

Biggest thing for today, though, is that we finished the Pendragon campaign that we've been playing for a year. It was awesome. All the loose ends got tied up... and I do mean all- the knights had bit players from old stories (some going back to squiring) show up and demand satisfaction.

My character's sister was finally avenged (the plot of the story for 6 game years, a full real year), her son was returned to her, and she finally- after being twice widowed- found a decent husband who didn't die right off the bat. Sweet!

The knights all got dubbed Knights of the Round Table, by King Arthur himself (so awesome! *sniff*), and Broderick and Courtney were married at the same time. Broderick hied himself North to his lands above the wall (won in the Pictish wars), where he and his lady lived happily ever after with the grove of the Golden Rose. Axel (after doing a penance for some minor matters) settled happily into life with his lady. Ronan wandered the land for 6 more years mourning for Melangalia before finally settling down.

And we all lived happily ever after. :D

Sorry to go on about my character (so to speak), but it was really cool. I love it when a game ends well like that; particularly a game that we had so much time and great past gaming invested in.

A funeral service for your character sheets

So, I mentioned that Ari was teething last night... well, guess what happened? She woke up at 2 AM, and didn't go back to bed until about 7 AM. Then we proceeded to sleep until after noon, thereby missing the NWAV t-shirt photo shoot and also mama's workout.

Here's my girl walking up the stairs. She still won't attempt to go *down* the stairs, though, even if I'm there. I respect this greatly as evidence that she knows her limits. :)

This is Ari and her cell phone, wearing some of her new winter clothes that we got from the thrift store. I'm particularly fond of this shirt.

I don't know if we've had a pic of the cell phone yet... Ari's the first one in the family to have a mobile phone. :) She's forever trying to get at our friend's phones, so when Thad saw this one at Target, we decided to get it. It's been awesome, because when she starts going for someone else's phone, I can always say, "here's YOUR phone, sweety!" and distract her.

We didn't do much today... Thad didn't work, so I did get some schoolwork done. We also cleaned some. Mostly, I just spent the day in a bit of a haze.

I did make a delicious dinner- little meatloaves stuffed with creamy blue cheese and glazed with ketchup glaze. They were very tasty.

Then, Jaime came over and we played a game... it's been too long since we got to do that (mostly because Jaime's been out of touch since he moved).

And then, about 1 AM, Miss Ari decided it was time to wake up. Ah, well... at least it's Thad's turn to be up with her. I'm off to bed at last!

Blacklisted

Arrrgh. Ari is so teething lately. I mean, not like we didn't know that, right? She does have an actual, visible nubbin working its way out. But today, she's been all grumpy and out of sorts. Oh, and she's been bitey!

Now that she has top teeth, it's easier than ever to chomp on mama. I have an open wound on my right nipple... I'm not sure how to get her to CUT IT THE HELL OUT, but it's my fondest desire for that to happen. It's really quite shockingly painful.

Well, I'm off to try to do some homework. I've been struggling with these couple of assignments all weekend; I've sent (checks) a total of NINE emails to my instructor about it over the last two days. We'll see if the last one was enough to let me finish the assignment, or whether we're gonna have to make it an even ten-some. Decet? Decad?

Anyway, if I'm lucky, I also get to work on more Halloween prep. Sneaky, sneaky...

Curse you R (and you too, Tcl!)

Well, here's all the pictures I've been meaning to post here for the last several days. :) This is Ari, asleep on her bed, two nights past.

I've just been busy, as always. School intervenes. The night I took this, I sat down, started writing, and literally fell asleep partway through. I woke up in my chair awhile later and just went to bed...

Lessee... Thursday was a work day, and nothing much to speak of. It was rainy and nasty. I slept through my alarm and missed my meeting with Brian.

Ari spent a bunch of time Friday doing this:

Like, for about 45 minutes, she was doing nothing but go from place to place in the kitchen and checking out what it looked like upside down. Funny girl.

Friday was actually a teacher work day- meaning, Thad had no work in the day. Boo, for our pocketbook, yay for our sanity. I went to school and made up my Brian meeting, and did a bit of work. I also folded a whole bunch of t-shirts.

The t-shirts are actually my design... they're not particularly exciting, but it is kinda cool to see something I drew mass-produced.

And Thad took this picture this morning. I don't remember Ari coming over to nurse, but evidently, she did. She thinks mama's nursies make great pillows! I think she always looks like a little plushy in her fleecy jammies. I just want to hug her right up!

Well, she makes for a really big, really wiggly plushy, I suppose.

Thad went to his clix tournament today, for the first time in a long while. Ari and I slept in (whee!) and then did some shopping for Halloween accoutrements- especially candies for the party. I just can't bring myself to buy standard candy... I had to go to the Whole Foods and buy dark chocolate covered things and organic gummy fruits.

I'm so looking forward to Halloween! Just 10 days! And then, I have to start planning for Thanksgiving.

Can't stop thinking about it

Sorry, no cute baby pictures today. :) Ari spent the majority of the day either tied to me or in her carseat, which makes it hard to take pictures... I wore her for about four hours straight. Thank god for wraps! We went to lunch with a visiting faculty member and a bunch of other students, and then we went on an extended downtown excursion by bus.

Instead of baby pictures, you get a picture of our dinner. This is lemon pepper chicken, thin strips of crispy bacon, carmelized shallots and peas served with eggs noodles and an alfredo-style sauce made with two delicious Italian cheeses (with more cheese grated on top). Alongside it is a baby romaine salad with shredded parmesan cheese, pear chunks, shredded carrot and craisins, served with a vinaigrette. There is multigrain sourdough bread (product of Giant Eagle, not me) on the side. The pasta dish was really delicious, although I think in future, I might simply serve lightly steamed veggies on the side of it. The complex entree with the salad made the plate kinda busy, visually and also flavor-wise.

For dessert, I layered dark chocolate pudding (homemade) and apricot ice cream (ala Jeni) and topped it with whipped cream.

This is what I get for being hungry during lectures... I plan these kind of meals out.

Ahem. And in news y'all actually care about, Ari is getting a fourth tooth. :) She's in good spirits (right now) but is drooling alot.

P.S. Ari loved the dinner- she ate a whole plateful of noodles and peas. She also helped me pick out the cheese at the cheese counter. :)

Cheeseburger in Deadwood

Frequently, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I don't post pictures because I'm not home to take any. Today, though, Thad took some for me!

So, here's Miss Ari, having some breakfast. You'll note the absence of eggs on her plate- she scarfed them all up just prior to this picture.

I had a good day, but I missed my little girl... I gave a quiz, and didn't get nearly through everything I wanted to get through in my class. That actually makes me feel a bit like a real professor, though- although I suppose that particular feature is not something I should strive to emulate.

Here's Ari, sitting in a container again. She pulled a bunch of the blocks out so she could sit in there. I think she's just... experimenting. The other day, she was happily banging her head on the underside of the table, and got really mad at Thad when he put his hand in the way. *roll eyes*

Today, she really said "mama". Thad came and picked me up from work. As I came around the side of the car to get her and go inside, she flung out her arms to come to me and said, very clearly, "mama!"

Talk to the door

This is Ari this morning. She went, took all the clothes out of her drawer, and then decided to sit in it. The look on her face is because she's actually stuck, and I'm taking a picture rather than helping her out of her plight- I couldn't help it! It was too funny. :)

She's been all into sitting in things lately. The other day, I looked over and she was sitting in this mesh cube we use as one of her bookshelves. She was just sitting in there, no books, and holding her potato. Not even babbling or anything- just sitting quietly in a cube, holding her potato.

Her papa took her to the market today, and they gave her a balloon. It is her first balloon ever, and she spent all evening carting it around.

She lost her pumpkin, today- she was holding it while we waited for the bus, and she picked the exact wrong moment to drop it on the ground. It fell on the ground and rolled into the street just as the bus was driving up. No more pumpkin!

Tonight was the Changeling game, and she had great fun playing with all her friends. She spent a bunch of time playing with Jaime in particular. He kept rubbing the balloon on her head so her hair would stand up all funny. :)

Here we are together- she was nursing a moment before this. Like a monkey, as you can see. Why she wants to nurse one-legged is beyond me.

Cute Ari moment for today (beyond the previously mentioned ones):

As we put her to bed, she grabbed Thad's brimmed black hat, and was putting it on her head and dancing around. So, here's this baby in adorable dragon PJ's (thanks, Brooke! ;)), and a top hat on her head, dancing around on the bed. Awwww.... :D

Pastries at last

Look closely at this picture... can you see what she's done?

She's gone and eaten all of the egg salad right off her sandwich bread! This amuses the heck out of me. :) She liked the mango a bunch, but was lukewarm on the squash. Usually she's a little carb monkey, and I put the egg salad on the bread thinking that at least she'll get a little protein while she munches the bread down. Today, though, she was all about the eggs.

We had a lovely morning; we went to the Worthington farmer's market and walked around. A nice old man gave her a little pumpkin, and she's been carrying it around all day.

In fact, this was almost a picture of her with the pumpkin. Instead, she has her potato... the potato she's been carting around and playing with for several days now. I don't really understand what the deal with the potato is, but she really likes it. She doesn't try to eat the potato (but she does lick it sometimes), she just holds the potato and wave it up and down. And looks at it. Ah, the inscrutable, potato-lovin' ways of babies.

Ari is definitely a toddler now- she can walk all the way across a room, if she sets her mind to it. Now, if she can just get the hang of the talking.

Cute Ari moment for today: lately, she's begun to ask us to read to her. She'll come, book in hand and barrel her way into your lap, grab your hand, and put the book in it. Then, she'll insist on having you read the book to her over and over and over and over and over again, although she doesn't necessarily want you to read the pages in the same order all the time. Mixin' it up is more fun for her. :)

Today, I made her mad at me by only reading "We're going on a bear hunt" twice, and then insisting that I had stuff I had to do right now that wasn't sit and read a book... silly me.

Somebody loves me

This picture is properly from Wednesday, but I just got to downloading it. There haven't been more recent pics, because I put the camera in the diaper bag thinking "I'll get some pics of her playing with Brooke while I work out for once!" Then, I promptly forgot about it, and didn't remember where the camera was until late today.

This picture is also kinda blurry... that's because, most of the time, I have exactly one try to get a shot before she starts crawling over to me trying to grab the camera... so I try to get it while she's not watching me, and hold it out of sight while it warms up, and then I'm inevitably mashing on the button going, "Take it! Take it quick before it's over!" Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

In any case, here she is doing a pants-on-my-head dance. It was totally adorable. For some reason, she likes to put things on her head lately... it's weird but kinda cute.

Today's been awesome. I got to sleep till 10. Ari napped well. She went to bed on time. I have done nothing useful at all. And I read a brand new Orson Scott Card novel. Today is just the day I needed to make up for the last week. :D

Cold snap

How little sleep can somebody have and still be okay? Thad and I are kinda pushing it. He's had 1-1/2 hours in the last 36, and I've had... 4? I'm definitely in not-safe-to-drive land at the moment. Ari is ripping up the latest Jo-Ann's ad on the floor next to me and I totally don't even care.

Thad has gone to bed (yay for him!) and I'm up with this baby. This baby who almost fell asleep and then struggled herself back to cheerful, burbling wakefulness.

Some random things about Ari right now:

• She loves to clap our hands. Like, she grabs our hands and smacks them together over and over again. She thinks it's hilarious.
• She still loves looking down on a mama or papa while being carried up the stairs.
• "Five little ducks" is no longer her favorite song... she thinks it's okay, but she doesn't care much about it anymore.
• If we ever fail to close the gate at the bottom of the stairs, she'll crawl up the first set of steps, wait until mama or papa sees her there and starts running over to close the gate, and then giggle and clamber up the stairs as fast as possible. It's like a race.
• She does this in the basement, too, when I do laundry. I end up stuffing clothes in as fast as possible, so I can run over, drag her back to me and stuff more in before the cycle begins anew.
• She looks adorable in her little strawberry cap.
  

Insinkerator of knightly doom

Check out my little huge giant (size 85, according to Pendragon)! She was helping us storm the castle.

She hung out with her papa today. She fell asleep in the car on the way home from the bank, and Thad was hanging out in the car reading when I got home from work, letting her sleep. ("'Cause I'm a good papa," he says.)

She was the belle of the roleplaying game... she had a grand time being underfoot while we faced our dire enemy, and rescued a baby.

Rescue the princess

Well... it's been a rough several days. I've been doing nothing but trying desperately to get work done. I actually started writing this post last night, and was too tired and out of it to fit sentences together coherently, so I put it off to today.

This is a picture of Thad and Ari at Skully's, the place near our house with tasty, tasty curly fries. We went there with R&B because I was too busy to try to cook, and we were really hungry. The service was incredibly awful, and it deprived me of more than an hour and a half of work time. Grrr. (Argh?)

I have hopes for next week, though- Thad will be working his new, better schedule and I have fewer assignments due then. I have to keep telling myself it'll be better, or I'll go spare. :)

This is Ari, trying calamari for the first time. It came, and she insisted on trying it. I ended up having to chop it into swallowable chunks- she was perfectly happy to chew on it (for ages), but with her two and a half teeth, she couldn't make much progress. Silly girl.

We went up to campus today so I could chat about schoolwork with some fellow students, and she got to see the ducks again. Mostly, she just played in the leaves all over the South Oval. Oh, and she tried to climb up an enormous tree. ???

So, just so you understand what I'm dealing with, this is the list of everything that needed to be done this weekend:

• Lecture for Tuesday
  
• Lecture for Thursday
• Homework for Phonology
• Homework for Phonetics
• Field Project Report for Phonetics
• Prep for In-Class Lab for Phonetics
• Grade massive stack of homeworks

This is the list of what still needs to be done:

• Homework for Phonology (due tomorrow)
• Field Project Report (due Thursday)
• Grading (mayhap not gonna happen this week- sorry, my students)

Argh. Well, I'm off to write up that Phonology homework.

The musky aroma of forbidden youth... and bacon!

Look at what I painted on my laptop case today! I didn't finish the bits off on the side... Ari woke up from her nap. :)

If you're wondering why I painted a lotus on my bag, it's a lotus because I'm a Sanskritist (loosely speaking), and I'm a linguist, and the lotus is pretty Indic. Also, there's a story where a goddess comes out of an enormous lotus and grants the gift of the Sanskrit language to a king- so it felt appropriate.

I got some work done today, although, not nearly as much as I might have liked. I spent the morning here and having breakfast at R&B's, and went to a studying at 4. More studying shall happen tomorrow- and it better be a mightiness of studying, 'cause I'm in trouble if it isn't. :P

So, I went to take this picture of Ari because I thought she looked super cute in her little jammies. As I snapped the picture, I suddenly realized, "Oh, crap! What does she have?" It was a little thrift store tag that was just hanging out on the floor. She's so good at finding anything I might have missed- cheerios, mummified bits of apple, STRAIGHT PINS... yeah.

Tomorrow, Ari and I are going over to the park if the weather's not sucky. There's likely to be some swings action. Whoo!

Sure, I can read Czech

I got a nap today! :D It totally started my day off right.

Lessee... Another baby Ari's age came over to play. They're almost at an age where they can play together, rather than in the same space. Today was also the first time that I saw Ari notice that another baby was nursing. And be jealous. :)

I cleaned up the house some more; it's no longer awful- just sort of untidy. I even vacuumed. Yay, having a functioning vacuum!

I went shopping and got tasty foods. Now, we have milk and bread in the house. And 58¢/dozen eggs! Oh, and today was Ari's first taste of blue cheese. I was sampling different cheeses at the Whole Foods, and she wanted to try some, so I gave her a little crumb. Poor little thing; it made her eyes water, and she made terrible faces. The cheese lady laughed and cut her a sample of a milder Italian cheese to take the edge off (which Ari greatly appreciated). I bet you, though, that she'd've eaten more if I'd given it to her.

I got some work done, as well. We've set me up a little mini-office in the spare room. More work will follow tomorrow.

A difference at last

This is totally not the picture I wanted to get. Ari was flouncing around all day in her cute skully shirt, with that cloud of golden curls around her head, grinning and smiling- and this is the only picture I managed to get. *sigh*

We got the skully at the Target- It was 3$ and I couldn't resist. It's incredibly cute on her. :D

On a sidenote- we went into the Target to look at Halloween decor. I'm planning a party, and they have kind of a cool Day of the Dead thing going on this year. Anyway, Ari got totally freaked out by the decorations. Who taught her to be scared of skeletons? It makes you wonder.

Last night, we had this incredible storm- it was raining so hard I couldn't see across the street, and there was walnut-sized hail (mostly marble sized, here) and bunches of lightning. Oh, plus tornado warnings, which meant the sirens were going. It was very apocalyptic-feeling.

We went into the basement, and one corner (a back one we don't use much) had water gushing into it- and, fortunately, straight into the conveniently placed drain that was right there. I just kinda looked at it and said "Um... okay. You keep doing that."

Thankfully, Thad got home from work right before the whole thing started- the streets were flooded, and hail+driving=suck.

Today, Ari used her elephant as a mighty steed. She and Thad had a lovely nap, so I hear. Speaking of sleeep, I'm off to bed early. I was up till 3 AM with a teething baby, and I'm hitting the end of my ability to function on no sleep.

It tastes like a rootbeer float

This is my baby eating veal and truffle ravioli. :D

It was Thad's turn to do dinner tonight, and evidently, he felt like being fancy, because he brought home fancy North Market ravioli. He and Ari went all around in the trailer again- it's awesome having it.

Today was mostly just work for me... I didn't get anything done in the evening (which is bad) so I'm going to desperately hope Ari naps tomorrow...

I have a golden ticket

Guess what time I went to bed last night? That's right, 5 AM. That little tooth did what teeth do best, and she woke up just as I was going to bed. I finally collapsed around 5, and I think she did too, shortly thereafter (there was half-asleep nursing involved). Then, I woke up at 8 only to discover that my doctor's appointment had been canceled. :P At least that meant I got to sleep in another couple of well-needed hours.

We had a pretty good day; I worked out again. Our afternoon/early evening was occupied by standing in line for tickets to see Jon Stewart (my hero...*sigh* :D). Ari had a grand ol' time with her papa, crawling all over the lawn in front of the Union while mama stood in line for 2 hours.

Ari moments for today:

• She totally hugged her papa goodbye, and waved as he went out the door
• We fed her a chinese noodle dish for dinner, and she dug in with both hands and scooped noodles into her mouth, hand over fist, until we finally took the dish away

Thad works tonight, but he's off tomorrow (at last). And hopefully, next week he starts a nicer, less stressful night schedule. We can't wait!

The old traditions

Guess who has three teeth? My baby does!

Thad saw the new tooth coming in on the upper right front (my right) of her mouth. I think it's been there a few days, though- partly because it's out a fair ways and partly because Ari's been kinda nibbly the last few days. I'm remembering back to all these little owie twinges when we were nursing, and realizing why that must have been...

We did alot of things today, and not nearly enough of them were me working on schoolwork. :( However, I did order my new glasses (they're purple) and I did spend some nice time with my Thaddeus. :D